How To Make Time For Your Art Like A Pro!

Have you ever said to yourself that there aren’t enough hours in the day?

Trust me when I say I know what you mean! Sometimes I feel as if I have so many things that need to get done: create new work, contact galleries, meetings with curators, sell prints, ship prints, update my website, marketing, paper work, day job, time with my husband, time with my family, time with friends, exercising, etc. With so many things that we need to do, especially for artists with families, it just makes you think how the heck can I get all of this done? In order to balance everything, we either put our tasks in two categories: We put in little effort or things just fall through the cracks.

It can sometimes feel like your artwork is a burden!

So how do we stop this pattern and get our art together? How can we create with a busy schedule? The answer it simple:

Schedule it!

You know how you schedule an appointment for the doctors office? Same concept. Look at your calendar and make space for your artwork. This strategy can be useful for planning out your entire week and it will help make your goals more achievable (who wouldn’t want that!?). Here are some tips on how you can use this method and turn into a professional artist:

Set Goals For The Week: Find out what you want to accomplish for the week – something that you know you can get done. Once you have that, look at your upcoming week and figure out where you can fit your goals in your every day tasks.

Commit To Your Schedule: You need to make sure that if you create a schedule, you stick to it. If you are going to spend 30 minutes on your artwork or running errands, then make sure you stick to the 30 minutes. Remember you have other things to do on your list.

Set Reminders: I like to schedule everything on my phone. Google is absolutely great as a planner! You have the option to set reminders and sync everything from your Goggle account to your phone.

Practice Makes Perfect: You are not going to get it right the first couple of times around. Sometimes you’ll go over your time or unexpected things can get in the way (like life). This is totally normal! You have to really commit and keep trying to find the right schedule layout for your week.

As an artist I know it can be difficult to be organized and plan your week ahead. This was something that I had to learn. But trust me when I say it makes all the difference and you accomplish so much more! So take out your planners and get to work!